That's extremely different from the sketch Marco Palmieri did for me, and it doesn't really match the description in the books. Marco described Cethente's shape to me as resembling the Cardassian emblem, but the sketch he drew is more rounded than that, with kind of an apple-core quality to it.

I've been planning to do my own drawing of Cethente (not Celenthe) based on Marco's sketch. I really should get around to that.

That's extremely different from the sketch Marco Palmieri did for me, and it doesn't really match the description in the books. Marco described Cethente's shape to me as resembling the Cardassian emblem, but the sketch he drew is more rounded than that, with kind of an apple-core quality to it.

I've been planning to do my own drawing of Cethente (not Celenthe) based on Marco's sketch. I really should get around to that.

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Geoff, just thought I'd say how great these pictures are.

Backstep, that image of Torvig is pretty much how I imagined him, alhough I pictured him having a kind of goggle arrangment across his eyes.

Christopher, these are Geoff's and other peoples intereprtations, they may not track with what you want them to look like, but as they are fictional creations and many are species not seen before, there will be differnces between the way you think they look , and say Geoff and Backstep!

Christopher, these are Geoff's and other peoples intereprtations, they may not track with what you want them to look like, but as they are fictional creations and many are species not seen before, there will be differnces between the way you think they look , and say Geoff and Backstep!

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Sure, I'm just saying there are some significant differences in detail from how Cethente was actually described in the books themselves. For instance, its lower module was described as diamond-shaped, and the legs were said to emerge from the narrowest point of its trunk.

Okay, I've spent all morning putting together a drawing of Cethente based on Marco's rough sketch (Marco Palmieri was the Titan editor from the beginning through Over a Torrent Sea, if anyone doesn't know). Unfortunately, my scanner is broken, so I had to make do by taking a digital photo and doing what I could to enhance and de-blur it. So here's a low-quality image of my interpretation of Marco Palmieri's interpretation of Dr. Se'al Cethente Qas:

Try to imagine it with a pearlescent, silvery sheen. The sensory nodules are like clear, dark cabochon gems. I should probably have filled them in darker, but I only had so much time to spare for this. The leg joints are meant to be kind of a ball-and-socket arrangement, but it doesn't come through on this resolution (and barely would even at full resolution).

Okay, I've spent all morning putting together a drawing of Cethente based on Marco's rough sketch (Marco Palmieri was the Titan editor from the beginning through Over a Torrent Sea, if anyone doesn't know). Unfortunately, my scanner is broken, so I had to make do by taking a digital photo and doing what I could to enhance and de-blur it. So here's a low-quality image of my interpretation of Marco Palmieri's interpretation of Dr. Se'al Cethente Qas:

Try to imagine it with a pearlescent, silvery sheen. The sensory nodules are like clear, dark cabochon gems. I should probably have filled them in darker, but I only had so much time to spare for this. The leg joints are meant to be kind of a ball-and-socket arrangement, but it doesn't come through on this resolution (and barely would even at full resolution).

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would such a species even wear a uniform? would they wear a sash or band with a communicator/rank/color etc? would they have specialized equipment for use by non-humanoid hands?

I never knew there was a sketch of the character. Never thought to ask.

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Well, the sketch Marco drew exists only on my 3x5-inch pocket notepad (as far as I know; maybe he had another in his notes somewhere). He drew it for me at Shore Leave last year after I showed him my concept sketch for Cethente (a few pages earlier in the same notepad) and asked "Is this right?" And he basically just sketched the body shape and a couple of jagged lines to represent the shape and placement of the legs.

And for what it's worth, Marco was annoyed by the "lamp" analogy. When Zurin Dakal thought that Cethente resembled a lamp in a relative's home, the reference was to a lamp that was a rather exotic objet d'art, not something that looked much like an ordinary lamp. Or so he told me when the lamp issue came up.

In the early years of Starfleet, as seen in Star Trek: Enterprise, Starfleet's mission is purely exploration and is not military in any sense except for weapons designed for defensive capabilities until the retrofitting of the Enterprise (NX-01) and the incorporation of MACOs after the Xindi attack on Earth. It is assumed this trend continues as Starfleet adopts a more traditional military role and assumes its regular place as the exploratory and defensive arm of the United Federation

In the early years of Starfleet, as seen in Star Trek: Enterprise, Starfleet's mission is purely exploration and is not military in any sense except for weapons designed for defensive capabilities until the retrofitting of the Enterprise (NX-01) and the incorporation of MACOs after the Xindi attack on Earth. It is assumed this trend continues as Starfleet adopts a more traditional military role and assumes its regular place as the exploratory and defensive arm of the United Federation

It's great seeing this stuff even if my own interpretation is different.
Geoff, what's the "glass bulb" thing, and is he wearing a universal translator (gray thing above arrowhead) and round beige socks?

Come to think of it, it'd be cool of they are socks: why should humans/oids be the only creatures that have parts that need covering?

Christopher, what's he made of? Silicon-based? He looks crystalline. Are those eyes at the bottom?

Aren't the "ports" the tentacles recede into a little too mechanical? I keep expecting irises to close up behind them once fully retracted.

There's a high dome on the top that protects the primary nerve cluster. it's meant to taper down to the "diamond shape" at the bottom; the secondary nerve cluster. When I read "nerve cluster" I think "soft" and "delicate."

Marco's drawing is illuminating as it is so far from ANYTHING that crossed my mind for this character's look.

I didn't take the Cardassia symbol as a literal or exact description but rather something the Cethenthe's form put Dakal in mind of. Ditto the "lamp" description. The whole crystalline thing is news to me. it's possible I missed or forgot that but I don't recall its body as being described that specifically.

I put the legs at the bottom because they just "felt" like that's where they should go.

I tend to shy away from hard straight lines because nature tends not to make organisms with hard straight lines.

Regardless of what's written in the books, every character I draw will have some version of the fleet uni on. The idea here is to create designs for a fictional animated series so, under those specs, simplicity of design and a certain uniformity of style from character to character have to remain in play.

The small, single figure illos take about 15 or 20 minutes to complete so there will be divergences or "mistakes" because they are all sort of fast and dirty impressions.

It took me longer to decide how tall the good doctor should be than to draw the illustration.

Christopher, what's he made of? Silicon-based? He looks crystalline. Are those eyes at the bottom?

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Cethente's anatomy is "semicrystalline." To quote Over a Torrent Sea, "Syrath anatomy was... based upon piezoelectric crystal 'cells' in a liquid silicate solvent, with genetic information encoded structurally in chains of dislocation loops and electrically in stored potentials, rather than chemically in nucleic acids" (p. 216). So kind of a "slushy" interior -- crystals in fluid -- encased in a hard exoskeleton.

Those aren't eyes exactly, but sensory nodes like those at the top. To quote Taking Wing, they're "bioluminescent bulges, glowing with the telltale light of its senses at work" (p. 142). So forget what I said above about them being dark. They should actually glow a soft green.

Also, Cethente is an "it," not a "he." Syrath are neuter.

Aren't the "ports" the tentacles recede into a little too mechanical? I keep expecting irises to close up behind them once fully retracted.

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I was just thinking maybe I should've made them more slitlike than circular. TW says the tentacles "emerged at need from equidistant apertures just under the dome" (same page).

There's a high dome on the top that protects the primary nerve cluster. it's meant to taper down to the "diamond shape" at the bottom; the secondary nerve cluster. When I read "nerve cluster" I think "soft" and "delicate."

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I can find no instances of the phrase "nerve cluster" being used in describing Cethente. On TW p. 141, there are references to the dome and the lower diamond being "sense clusters," but then, the human head could be called a sense cluster.

I didn't take the Cardassia symbol as a literal or exact description but rather something the Cethenthe's form put Dakal in mind of. Ditto the "lamp" description.

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Again from TW p. 141, from Dakal's POV: "The astrophysicist was shaped, in fact, a great deal like a three-dimensional sculpture of the symbol of the Union."

The whole crystalline thing is news to me. it's possible I missed or forgot that but I don't recall its body as being described that specifically.

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That's because it wasn't decided on until after you wrote your book. Andy & Mike didn't specify what Syrath anatomy was based on, merely describing Cethente as "exoskeletal." But they did suggest that Cethente didn't consume nourishment by normal means, and it did have those glowing sensory node thingies, and just in general it seemed to be the most alien member of the crew. And for OaTS I needed a crewperson with a very alien and very robust anatomy to be able to survive extreme pressures. Somehow the idea of a semicrystalline anatomy occurred to me. I was probably influenced by all the references in The Red King to the "crystalline" sound of Cethente's voice, though of course that was metaphorical. I liked the idea of Cethente being the most durable member of the crew despite appearing to be the most fragile. Although I can't quite remember whether that was my idea or something I got from Marco.

By the way, I just found a comment from Marco in my old e-mails about Cethente's tentacles: "[T]he underside of Cethente's tentacles are studded with opposable musclular knobs that it uses for finer manipulation of its environment." So my idea to trifurcate them apparently wasn't what Marco had in mind. I still think it makes more sense, though. Maybe both are the case.

I think between the two Christopher's looks more like I had imagined the character, but for the record, from a structural perspective, it seems like a really stupid design, like it would just tip over all the time with the top so heavy and the legs so close together at their anchor points. Unless it carries a lot of wait in the lower cluster, I guess.

I mean, I can imagine looking at humans and thinking "only two legs? How do they stand up?", I suppose it's all in how you look at it, but it did strike me as odd.